Article
Mysticism is concerned with an individual relationship with the ineffable, transcendent god. The origin of the word lies in the Greek mysteries where people gained an esoteric knowledge of divine things and were reborn into eternity.
As Christians, we know God in immanence through our relationship with the human Jesus, our saviour, mediator and advocate, but this does not preclude our search for a tentative relationship with the Creator Father.
Mysticism is concerned with the spiritual knowledge of truth we cannot grasp with our minds. The religious mystic seeks a direct experience of the presence of god. Underhill defines it as the act of union with the reality of god. The mystic looks into his own soul and beyond. In this imageless state he experiences something ineffable and blissful. Lewis-Williams says that mystics exploit the autistic end of the spectrum of consciousness. Mysticism is common to all cultures.
Mystics have used different devices for reaching their goal but the goal has always been the same: loss of self, dwelling on the wholly other. Contemplation is a movement of consciousness towards a higher level as a result of the emergence and cultivation of powers which in most of us remain latent.
All mystics use words, some very poetic, in a to describe their strivings towards communion with god and their moments of revelation, awe and wonder. Some terminology sounds strange but this is because language must stretch towards the ineffable, the ecstatic. Some, describing god the beloved, use beautiful and erotic language to describe the yearning of the soul for god, seen in the Song of Solomon and many other writings.
For me the key point is that in different cultures the words which mystics use are very similar; this is hardly surprising as we are existential beings who can only express ourselves through experience-based language; but although we are small beings we can stretch beyond ourselves towards god.
Partly taken from
- Happold, F.C.: Mysticism: A Study and Anthology, Penguin, 1990
- Lewis-Williams, David: The Mind in The Cave, Thames & Hudson, 2004
- Smart, Ninian: The Religious Experience of Mankind, Scribner, 1996
- Underhill, Evelyn: Practical Mysticism, Dover, 2000.
BT/KC viii/06
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Added: 9th February 2007
Added: 9th February 2007